Critiquing Costello's comments

Today's Op Ed in the SMH and The Age from former treasurer and deputy liberal leader, Peter Costello outlines some very valid issues concerning the importance of sound public sector finances and in particular, the problems poorly managed fiscal settings deliver.

Costello rightly cites the woes of many economies in the euro zone as evidence of poor economic management.

But that's about as useful as his piece gets.

Costello suggests, without specifying the date that:

"Once upon a time we could have shared our experience at managing and eliminating public debt. We could have shared our experience on how to halt a ratings downgrade and restore a sovereign credit rating to triple-A."

Why the so-called sharing of "our experience" is no longer valid is not specified by Costello. He implies it is due to the factually flawed assertion of "bigger government and bigger borrowing".

There are also some inconvenient facts that undermine Costello's commentary. Never once during the Howard government during which Costello was treasurer for the whole time did Australia achieve the triple-A credit rating from all major credit rating agencies. With Fitch moving Australia to triple-A last month, Australia for the first time ever has the trifecta of triple-A from all three agencies. This is a truly magnificent endorsement of Australia's economic position and management over many years so little wonder Treasurer Swan was Euromoney's Treasurer of the Year.

Costello was never Treasurer of the Year and after the worthy tax reforms associated with the introduction of (the watered down) GST, he sat back while the asset price and mining booms saw his period as treasurer reap the highest tax to GDP ratio ever recorded in Australia's modern history at 24.1 per cent. In 2010-11, this ratio was at multi-decade lows of 20.0 per cent. Is this how he suggests the Europeans should fix their fiscal problems? Boost the tax to GDP ratio to record highs?

In terms of "bigger borrowing", it was the Howard government via Costello that maintained a market for Commonwealth Government bonds after serious consideration was given to eliminating it. Fair enough too. This meant (rightly so) that Australia would always have public sector gross debt into the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. Costello chose to maintain and build up gross debt - ie, government borrowing. The Gillard Government has reiterated that objective for the bond market and after consultation with stakeholders, including the RBA and Treasury as well as major market participants, and also in reaction to the Basel III requirements for banking regulation, the Gillard Government will maintain the bond market at around 12-14 per cent of GDP into the distant future. In other words, the gross debt to GDP will, for ever more, be around 12 – 14 per cent of GDP. This is sensible, prudent and savvy policy.

It is also worth looking at what Costello said in 1999, shortly after the budget and in reaction to a ratings upgrade for Australia from Standard & Poors.

He quite rightly said:

"This is a recognition by an international ratings agency of the strength of the Government's budget policy. As the ratings agency announced, it's a consequence of good economic policy and it means that Australia is again being regarded internationally as a very strong economy"

He went on:

"It also means that Australian companies will find it easier to borrow at lower rates. It will be good for economic growth and that will be good for jobs in Australia…it's a consequence of long, hard, good economic work by this Government and it shows the benefits that economic reform will have."

Costello does not use such words now even though Australia's sovereign rating is now better than back then and better than at any time in history, including the 11 and a half years he was Treasurer.

Finally, it is important to note that the Howard government never had an objective for the budget to be in surplus. On the contrary - in the 1996 Charter of Budget Honesty, the Howard government objective for the budget was "to maintain budget balance, on average, over the course of the economic cycle". No mention of surplus. The "balance on average" means that an occasional surplus would be met with an occasional deficit - which is exactly how fiscal policy should be run when there is a business cycle to contend with.

Costello's hollow words do not stack up against his record as Treasurer or the management of the business cycle during and after the GFC.